Tokyo: Toshiba hinted at a possible fresh accounting scandal yesterday as it delayed the release of financial results but warned it would lose billions of dollars in its US nuclear power unit. The company also announced that its Chairman Shigenori Shiga stepped down from his post.
Its Tokyo-listed shares plunged after one of Japan's best-known companies surprised markets by failing to release nine-month earnings at midday as scheduled.
Toshiba - which was hammered in 2015 by a profit-padding scandal - said it has requested a one-month extension for submitting earnings to market regulators.
Hours later the company -- a cornerstone of Japan's post-war industrial rise which now employs about 188,000 people globally -- issued a grim preliminary earnings estimate.
It warned it was on track to report a net loss of 390bn yen ($3.4bn) in the current fiscal year to March, with losses in its atomic division topping 700bn yen. The firm said its chairman Shigenori Shiga has stepped down from his post but will stay with the company -- a common act of contrition at scandal-hit Japanese firms -- as it probes an acquisition by Westinghouse Electric, its US atomic power unit. Toshiba shares tumbled 8.0 percent to end yesterday's session at 229.8 yen ($2). "The company, with deep regret, has submitted an application for approval to extend the deadline for submission" of its financial results until mid-March, it said in a statement.
